The county with the lowest percentage of state assessments passed was Hancock County with 34.4%.
The county with the highest percentage of state assessments passed was Williamson County with 84.0%.
Over the entire state of Tennessee, the percentage of state assessments passed was 55.6%.
The distribution of state assessment passing percentages is quite normally distributed.
Smith, Putnam, Cannon, Warren, and Marion County values were not reported on the Department of Education’s website.
The county with the lowest graduation rate was Shelby County with 76.6%.
The county with the highest graduation rate was Lauderdale County with 99.1%.
Over the entire state of Tennessee, the percentage of state assessments passed was 87.3%.
The distribution of state assessment passing percentages is not normally distributed. There is a large spike in frequencies at around the 90% mark.
Coffee County graduation rates could not be obtained.
There is a relatively weak positive correlation between performance on state tests and graduation rates at the county level. There are some obvious outliers. Most notably, Van Buren, Clay, Morgan, Pickett, and Wayne Counties all had 50% or less pass rates on their state assessments, but yet they graduated at a rate of 95% or better.
The weakness of the correlation suggests there are other factors in play that affect graduation beyond competency on standardized tests. This fits with the current grading model, whereby standardized tests count for 25% of a student’s grade in a course; even if a student fails a state assessment, he/she can still do well enough in the rest of the course to earn the credit.